The Graffiti of War Project

Used with permission from http://www.graffitiofwar.com/ 

Offering a unique perspective, experience the wars through the eyes of those living and dying through these conflicts.  Each image represents a moment in time, when an emotion was captured in ink, paint, or pencil, an unconventional historical record of this generation's war. Our Mission is that through sharing these images, we will begin a dialog between soldier and civilian, to bridge this ever-widening divide between our warfighters and civilians.  To bring understanding and true empathy of what our military men and women experience during their deployments.

We are collecting these images through submissions to our website, on Facebook and those sent into us via email.  This summer, Jaeson "Doc" Parsons is heading to Kuwait and Iraq to document the images on different posts and outposts located across Iraq.  Our content and blog, detailing the journey, will be a feature on Maxim.com and in their upcoming "Military" tab.

We will continue to accept images through Facebook and this website until we feel we have accurately and thoroughly collected enough to complete the book, The Graffiti of war.  Proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to The Graffiti of War Fouondation as well as organizations supporting our service members and veterans suffering from the silent wounds of war, PTSD.

We have NO political affiliation, NO ulterior agenda other than to ensure our brothers and sisters-in-arms receive the help and support they deserve because of their selfless service to answer the call to arms.  They are that 1% and it is our duty as Americans to ensure their health and posterity.

How will our generation of citizens be judged?

From The Graffiti of War Project http://www.graffitiofwar.com/

First Person: Combat PTSD

My name is Rob Honzell, Sr. and I am a Marine Combat Veteran who served in the Vietnam War. I served two tours with 1st Recon eventually assigned to the Phoenix Program. I am the author of First Person: Combat PTSD. The offering was self-published, not by necessity, but by choice. The two publishers that bid on the book wished to turn my life’s journey into a novel. I did not reveal very intimate details of my live to have it turned into something that the average combat vet and his/her family could not relate to. The most gratifying emails and comments concerning the book are, "I read your book and realize that this is my husband", "I now know why my dad acts the way he does", and "My wife is a different person since she came back from Iraq, now I know why." This is why I chronicled my life and laid it out for public scrutiny and examination, and why I gave up so much in doing so. In a later contribution if I will explain the previous statement in greater detail.

I still have family members and ex-wives not talking to me over the book. It is what it is; a detailed account of my combat experiences in a special operations unit. An account of the trauma that precipitated the onset of the anxiety disorder labeled as Combat PTSD.

Unknown Soldiers by Joe Garland, WWII Veteran

I recieved this comment on The Combat Veteran and Police Assisted Suicide on November 25, 2008,

Scott, sometimes it takes a long time to recognize that we have PTSD. My preface to my new book, Unknown Soldiers, (see below) is an account of my situation. I've finally written my place in history and that of my comrades from my point of view as a participant. My new book, "Unknown Soldiers," is a memoir of my days as a soldier serving in World War II in Europe.

Even as I, at eighty-five, close the book sixty-five years later, I confess in the recollection of it all to a tinge of what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder. No, none of us purposed our death when we purposed our services to President Roosevelt and to our country back in the 1940s.

This book was embarked upon in March 1943 in the form of a journal—a catch-as-catch-can record of whatever lay ahead of me, a bottom-of-the-pile volunteer in the United States Infantry when the USA was viewed as the last hope of a more or less civilized world grappling with the most evil force in the recorded history of mankind. Six months after I signed up for battle, not long after the Allied invasion of Italy, I landed in ravaged Naples with the first contingent of American casualty replacements in Europe and was assigned to the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon of about thirty front-line scouts and observers in the 45th Infantry Division's 157th Regiment, already baptized in the battle to drive the Germans from Sicily after their expulsion from North Africa.

Castrated Hearts

US Military Veterans of all branches, eras and backgrounds are represented in Castrated Hearts: People Traumatized Shouldering Darkness, a collection of poems and photographs written by veterans which depict the experience of military acquired Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

"These stories have to be told," said contributor Donald Loomis, a Purple Heart recipient who served in Vietnam. Loomis was a Chief Warrant Officer and Army helicopter pilot who states that his six and a half years of service in the military were both the most exciting and most tragic years of his life.

"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the most devastating affliction that any member of the US military can suffer, whether acquired in or out of combat. PTSD kills people, destroys families, and ruins lives," states Loomis.
My hope is that this book would raise awareness of PTSD throughout the United States. Currently PTSD is a phantom affliction. It's not talked about and is well repressed except for a small arena in the Veteran's Affairs Administration.
Check the book out above and the rest of the Press Release here...

Once a Warrior Always a Warrior

GPP Life proudly announces the February release of ONCE A WARRIOR—ALWAYS A WARRIOR: NAVIGATING THE TRANSITION FROM COMBAT TO HOME by Charles W. Hoge, M.D. / Colonel U.S. Army (Retired) (ISBN #978-0-7627-5442-7; $18.95; Paperback; February 23, 2010).

Returning home from war can be as difficult, if not more so, than time spent serving in a combat zone. With this practical reality in mind Colonel Charles Hoge provides a groundbreaking resource with essential new insights. This book is a must-read for anyone who has ever returned home from a war zone, as well as their loved ones, friends, coworkers, and health care providers. Here, in clear easily accessible language, Dr. Hoge presents the latest knowledge about combat stress, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), mTBI (mild traumatic brain injury), other physiological reactions to war, and treatment options.

Recognizing that everyone changes during deployment, Dr. Hoge provides ways to help warriors and their family members better understand each other’s experience. His message about recognizing that combat survival skills are often viewed as “symptoms” back home will help anyone who wants to truly understand the experience of service members and veterans. Readers will learn how military service personnel can successfully navigate the transition from the war zone (i.e., LANDNAV for the home front)—no matter how many days, months, or years have passed. Once a Warrior—Always a Warrior explains how a warrior’s knowledge and skills are vital for living at peace in an insane world.

Charles W. Hoge, MD, Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired) directed the premiere U.S. research program at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research from 2002 through 2009 on the mental health and neurological effects of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He deployed to Iraq (2004) to improve combat stress care. His articles on PTSD, mTBI, and stigma, published by The New England Journal of Medicine and The Journal of the American Medical Association, are the most frequently cited medical publications from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He continues to work as a staff psychiatrist treating service members, veterans, and family members. A national expert on war-related mental health issues and traumatic brain injury, Dr. Hoge has testified to Congress and has a track record of providing articulate, engaging interviews for national news organizations. He lives in the Washington, D.C.

Suicide Prevention for Combat Veterans

“Every day, five U.S. soldiers try to kill themselves”(CNN.com).

HEALING SUICIDAL VETERANS: Recognizing, Supporting and Answering Their Pleas for Help (October 2009, New Horizon Press) is written by Victor Montgomery, III, MAEd., CMAC, RAS, who has worked with thousands of veterans and families as a former crisis intervention therapist at the National Veterans’ Suicide Prevention Lifeline and as an addiction therapist in outpatient clinics.


In HEALING SUICIDAL VETERANS, Montgomery provides,

• Tips and effective strategies for veterans to cope and heal.
• Checklists to identify symptoms of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and substance abuse.
• Twelve real-life stories featuring veterans from the Iraq, Afghanistan, Gulf, Beirut, Vietnam and Korean wars.
• Resources for veterans to seek the help they need.

HEALING SUICIDAL VETERANS is a vital guide for any veteran struggling with suicidal impulses.

SOFT SPOTS: A Marine's Memoir of Combat and PTSD

SOFT SPOTS: A Marine's Memoir of Combat and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a powerful, haunting, provocative memoir of a Marine in Iraq - and his struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in a system trying to hide the damage done


CLINT VAN WINKLE served for eight years in the United States Marine Corps, earning the rank of sergeant. While in Iraq he served as an Amphibious Assault Vehicle section leader, attached to Lima Company 3rd BN 1st Marines, and commanded eighteen other Marines. After two tours of duty, he returned to earn a BA in English from Arizona State University, then a MA in Creative Writing and Media from the University of Wales-Swansea, and began to publish pieces of this book in literary magazines.

Marine Sergeant Clint Van Winkle flew to war on Valentine’s Day 2003. His battalion was among the first wave of troops that crossed into Iraq, and his first combat experience was the battle of Nasiriyah, followed by patrols throughout the country, house to house searches, and operations in the dangerous Baghdad slums.

But after two tours of duty, certain images would not leave his memory—a fragmented mental movie of shooting a little girl; of scavenging parts from a destroyed, blood-spattered tank; of obliterating several Iraqi men hidden behind an ancient wall; and of mistakenly stepping on a “soft spot,” the remains of a Marine killed in combat. After his return home, Van Winkle sought help at a Veterans Administration facility, and so began a maddening journey through an indifferent system that promises to care for veterans, but in fact abandons many of them.

From riveting scenes of combat violence, to the gallows humor of soldiers fighting a war that seems to make no sense, to moments of tenderness in a civilian life ravaged by flashbacks, rage, and doubt, Soft Spots reveals the mind of a soldier like no other recent memoir of the war that has consumed AmericaSOFT SPOTS: A Marine's Memoir of Combat and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, went on-sale March 3.

Trauma, Chronic Pain & Craniosacral Therapy

I have been having an interesting and engaged conversion with Ambivalent Hippie from another post over at A Soldier's Perspective, on the subject of the mind-body connection and how that effects trauma survivors and figured that others my benefit from this exchange. Here she describes her quest for learning to help our veterans,

I'm a massage therapist, getting training in craniosacral therapy, which deals with a fair amount of neurological reprogramming after the dissociation and compartmentalization that often comes with trauma. I want to help these guys and honestly am struggling to maintain hope, feeling somewhat powerless.

A comment by me concerning chronic pain and trauma:

...I have read some about how the body remembers trauma even if the conscious mind does not. How this somatic connection can manifest in the body becoming ridged and tense leading to chronic pain and fatigue. In the reading I have sampled massage has released this tension and in doing so unblocks the memories that have been suppressed.

The neurological reprogramming that you mentioned along with dissociation and compartmentalization interest me as I have wrote extensively these matters from a psychological perspective. I would appreciate some expounding on your understanding of the connection with the physiological aspects of massage and the release of the psychological defensive mechanisms that trouble the mind-body connexion of the traumatized person.

Ambivalent Hippie's response:

Basically the idea is that our body is the vehicle for all of our experiences - we literally metabolize them. What often happens with trauma is that an experience is overwhelming enough that the body doesn't fully process it. It centers the disturbance and holds it in a particular location to contain it. The simplest example of this would be a "knot", or tension/spasm in someone's shoulder-blade, but this can also show up in someone's nervous system, with memories that have been shut out of consciousness or show up as flashbacks and disrupt functioning on some level. Either way, the experience can hold a tremendous amount of energetic charge.

With the trust of a safe therapeutic relationship, and learning to have a conscious relationship with one's own body, there can be space for these kinds of holdings to release. Physical releases often show up as tremors or shaking, as animals tend to do after a traumatic event. Our society and conscious minds can sometimes suppress this process from running its course. Emotional releases are harder to predict or describe, but they do happen also. Once the energy holding the traumatic memory in place in the nervous system and tissue has been released, the relationship to certain memories can be entirely different, allowing people to exist more fully in the present moment.

Some helpful books might be:

• Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine
• The Body Remembers by Babette Rothschild
• The Body Bears the Burden: Trauma, Dissociation and Disease by Robert Scear
• Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body and Society by Van der Kolk, McFarlane and Weisaeth
• Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith Herman

Hope that helps!

My next comment,

AH, thank you for the education and information on the mind body connection. I have read a little on the subject and have considered doing massage therapy and hypnosis to get past the physical wreckage that resides in my body.

Most of the time I cannot sleep well and when I get up in the morning it feels as thought a truck has ran me over. I feel physical pain constantly everyday and very rarely am I relaxed. I have to remind myself to relax the muscles in my legs and buttocks, but have yet to learn how to mentally relax the muscle group in my back.